Here are the first ten programs from the eleventh week of the 1972-1973 television season, which ran from Monday, November 20th, 1972 through Sunday, November 26th, 1972. There were a total of 58 programs broadcast during the week and The Los Angeles Times published the complete Nielsen report on December 6th, 1972. After two weeks in the runners up position, behind movies True Grit and then Patton, both broadcast by ABC, All in the Family climbed back to the top of the charts this week, with a huge 34.5/54 Nielsen rating. ABC had to settle for second with a repeat of its critically acclaimed made-for-TV movie Brian’s Song, broadcast on November 21st as part of The ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week.

Two other movie nights were in the Top Ten: The ABC Wednesday Movie (premiere of the made-for-TV movie All My Darling Daughers, with Robert Young and Eve Arden) and The CBS Thursday Movie (1968’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with Dick Van Dyke). ABC was able to rank second for the week with an 18.9 Nielsen rating (down from a 19.5 the previous week. CBS was first with a 20.4 rating (up from a 20.1 rating) and NBC was third with an 18.6 (down from a 21.2 rating). Here’s the Top Ten, complete with Nielsen ratings:

##

Program

Net

Rating

1.

All in the Family

ABC

34.5

2.

ABC Tuesday Movie

ABC

30.4

3.

Columbo

NBC

29.0

4.

Maude

CBS

28.8

5.

Sanford & Son

NBC

27.7

6.

Hawaii Five-O

CBS

27.7

7.

ABC Wednesday Movie

ABC

25.9

8.

Walt Disney

NBC

25.9

9.

CBS Thursday Movie

CBS

25.5

10.

Bridget Loves Bernie

CBS

25.4

Here’s how the networks fared on Friday, November 24th. ABC opened with The Brady Bunch, followed by The Partridge Family, Room 222, The Odd Couple and Love, American Style. CBS broadcast The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and then The CBS Friday Movie (Live a Little, Love a Little, an Elvis Presley film). NBC opened with Sanford and Son, then The Little People (later The Brian Keith Show), Ghost Story and Banyon.

Time

ABC

CBS

NBC

8:00PM

17.1/25

15.6/26

27.7/46

8:30PM

19.6/32

15.6/26

18.7/31

9:00PM

15.9/27

18.4/31

18.7/31

9:30PM

15.9/27

18.4/31

18.7/31

10:00PM

17.5/32

18.4/31

16.1/29

10:30PM

17.5/32

18.4/31

16.1/29

Average

17.2/29

17.5/29

19.3/33

NBC comfortably but not overwhelmingly won the night with a 19.3 rating and a 33 share. CBS was able to pass ABC for second on the strength of The CBS Friday Movie, averaging a 17.5 rating and a 29 share; ABC had an up-and-down night and averaged a 17.2 rating and a 29 share, meaning CBS and ABC were tied in terms of share of the audience. Interestingly, after losing a huge portion of the audience after Sanford and Son ended at 8:30PM, NBC was able to hold steady until 10PM; Ghost Story retained all of its The Little People lead-in. The Little People would return the following season while both Ghost Story and Banyon were canned at the end of the 1972-1973 season.

Despite facing ABC’s repeat of Brian’s Song on Tuesday, November 21st, CBS was able to stay very competitive with Hawaii Five-O and the first half-hour of The CBS Tuesday Night Movie (Gargoyles). NBC, which filled all three hours of prime time with West Side Story, had to settle for a weak third. Here are the ratings for the 8:30-10PM period:

Time

ABC

CBS

NBC

8:30PM

30.4/43

27.7/39

11.4/17

9:00PM

30.4/43

27.7/39

11.4/17

9:30PM

30.4/43

19.5/32

11.4/17

Average

30.4/43

25.0/37

11.4/17

Based solely on these average ratings rather than half-hour or quarterly breakdowns, 66.8% of all television households were watching the networks during this period; an astounding 97% of all televisions in use at the time were tuned into either ABC, CBS or NBC.

5 Comments

The network movie nights did very well in Week 11. One of the films that made its broadcast debut that week on ‘NBC Saturday Night at the Movies’ was HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING, which got a subpar 14.7HH/26%.

The film, which was based on the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical production, was to beget an ABC pilot ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’, which starring Miss Susan Blanchard taking over the role essayed in the film by Miss Michele Lee, while Mr. Alan Birsky assumed the role made famous by Mr. Robert Morse. The pilot was written by Mr. Abe Burrows, who had also written the feature film, as well as being writer-composer of the features CACTUS FLOWER, CAN-CAN, SILK STOCKINGS, GUYS & DOLLS. Mr. Burrows also co-created and scripted the cult ABC series ‘O.K. Crackerby!’ with the tv critic Mr. Cleveland Amory back in the ’60s. This ABC pilot would be his final film/television project.

Just a month after Mr. Fred Silverman assumed the Presidency of ABC, the network finally got around to burning off the ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ pilot on Friday June 27, 1975, it garnered an almost invisible 5.2HH/11%.

It would be nice to see a dvd release of HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING that included this pilot, much like the recent anniversary dvd editions of the musicals STATE FAIR and THE KING AND I both contained the pilots for their respective spin-off series.

A friend gave me the Boston area TV GUIDE that covers the bulk of this period (November 18–24)

Bea Arthur is the cover story. Other articles feature James Caan (tied into the BRIAN’S SONG reairing), and TODAY SHOW producer turned author Al Morgan (his book “The Whole World Is Watching” is a fictionalized telling of what he experienced doing TODAY from Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention) experiencing the trials and tribulations of a promotional tour, from interacting with Joe Franklin in New York to enduring a bomb threat to the Los Angeles studio where he was appearing on a local show hosted by Regis Philbin–although Reege wasn’t the one interviewing him). It also announces BONANZA’s cancellation.

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